If you love shopping and would whole-heartedly take a deal or two, Black Friday is more than what you asked for. Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving and before Christmas when retailers offer big discounts and deals on popular goods to cash in on the festive spirit. Amazon introduced Black Friday to the United Kingdom in 2010 and the day of shopping carnage has been religiously held since then. 2017 Black Friday is going to be held on 24 November. Let’s take a look at what Black Friday 2017 has in store for UK buyers and some tips on grabbing the best deals.
2016 Black Friday Deals
Black Friday 2016 brought quite a few brands under the same roof. In fact, it was the first Black Friday Apple participated in. It offered an Apple gift card worth £80 on every iPad or Apple computer purchased. John Lewis was leading the race for Apple discounts. The department store offered the iPad Mini 2 for as low as £189. But its bestseller was Sonos Play 1, a smart speaker, with a unit going off the shelf every 10 seconds. John Lewis’ Marc Jacobs perfume and Lego Simpson’s house sold well too. Currys sold 23 large-screen televisions every minute. Other favourites at the store were PS4s, laptops, Samsung tablets, Google Chromecasts, and large kitchen appliances. Very.co.uk reportedly sold a games console every four seconds.
There were quite a few holiday bargains too. Monarch Airlines offered a return flight to the Canaries for just £35. Air New Zealand offered 100 travellers flights from London Heathrow to Los Angeles for just £199 per person return.
Lidl, the low cost supermarket discounted champagne and food, and there were deals on phones, furniture, and also insurance.
Set top boxes were offered for free, and free consoles and TVs were offered to people upgrading various subscription plans.
What to Expect from Black Friday 2017?
As aforementioned, 24th November would be 2017’s Black Friday. If past trends are any indication, brands won’t open up beforehand about the specific products that would go on sale and by how much would they be discounted. Like the past, you can expect some mouth-watering deals on consumer appliances such as televisions and laptops, clothing, homeware, cosmetics, etc. Last year, even Ford got in on the event so expect other automobile companies to follow suit.
If you’re looking to buy toys, you must know that stores such as Toys r us. Argos and Amazon are the go to.
All your favourite stores may not participate in Black Friday but Amazon, John Lewis, Game, House of Fraser and Boots are expected to make their presence felt. Stores such as Ikea, Next, Homebase and Asda didn’t participate in the frenzy in 2016. So it’s not sure whether they’ll have a change of minds this year. You can keep updated on these stores here.
Black Friday Shopping Strategy and Tips
In the first few years, Black Friday shopping was primarily carried out in traditional stores. But due to the mass hysteria and also several unfortunate incidents taking place, a lot of the shopping is now carried out online. The online route may have spared shoppers the queues and long waiting periods, but it’s still equally difficult to grab an awesome deal. The following tips shall help increase your chances:
• Shop with a budget so that you don’t end up overspending.
• Carry out research and know what specific products would be on sale and what the deals for it would be like across participating stores.
• Shop as early as possible. Most retailers’ products officially go on sale at midnight and if you leave it until the morning or afternoon, your chances of picking the highly discounted products diminish significantly.
• Keep an eye out for shopping deals before Black Friday and also the days thereafter. In case you didn’t know, there is something called Cyber Monday, which is another great day for shopping online.
• Don’t buy products you don’t need unless it’s heavily discounted. By truncating your wish list, you save time and spend valuable minutes shopping only for the products that matter.
